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I'm writing a book about seven years that took me from 155 kilograms and meth to where I am today. This is where I put down what comes out of that process.

Three kinds of texts.

From the book. Moments I lived through and suppressed for years. Some will make it in whole, others will be cut and stay here only.

On writing. Where I get stuck, and what happens when I have to go back to years I don't want to go back to.

On publishing. What it takes to publish a book on your own. What it costs, what I didn't know about it, and exactly where I am right now.

None of this is a guide. It's just what's happening while the book is being written.

  • Bib number 29 — first race

    17th September 2017. Beh Zubrohlavským chotárom, second edition. I have bib number 29 and in the finish photo I'm holding a medal in my hand.

  • The Third Subchapter

    This week I wrote one of the most difficult subchapters in the entire book. In the final chapter I am currently writing, there will be more like it — it is a chapter where everything I have described so far begins to come together.

  • Aunt Majka and the Hole in the Ice

    In January 2021, I stood waist-deep in the cold water of a frozen lake, holding a piece of ice, surrounded by people I regularly met with that winter for cold-water swimming. In the photo, it looks simple — a guy in the ice, a somewhat amusing shot. But behind it lies a journey worth telling.

  • An Idea That Came Twice

    Eight years ago, colleagues at work told me I should write a book. We were sitting together and I was telling them what I had experienced until then — life on the street, half a year without a salary, how I taught myself to program, although I was failing school to become a chef. I was totally lost back then, occasionally taking meth. Despite that, the idea seemed good to me, even though with the life I had back then, it would have been a complete fiasco.

  • First Step

    June 8th, 2020. At half past eleven, the box was sitting on the staircase. By five in the afternoon, the treadmill was in the living room.

  • First Entry

    19th August 2021, 16:06. I'm sitting in the Fabia, I turn around and someone takes a photo. Belly against the steering wheel, seatbelt across it. I wasn't posing, wasn't expecting it. That's how the photos come out where you actually see a person.